Marking liberation from Auschwitz

Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. The United Nations designated this date International Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor the memory of those killed during the Holocaust and to rededicate ourselves to doing all we can to prevent such horrible crimes from happening again.

Given the bloody history of the past five decades — in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Darfur and other places — a healthy degree of skepticism is warranted about politicians’ commitment to the lofty goal of “never again.” However, we believe that progress is discernible. Efforts by the United Nations and among member states to make genocide prevention a priority, coupled with a new focus by government officials and civil society on keeping political crises from metastasizing into massive violence against civilians, offer hope that a world without genocide is attainable.

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Nearly 17 years ago, the United Nations looked the other way as genocide unfolded in Rwanda. So it was more than a little noteworthy last week when two senior U.N. officials, charged with monitoring for the threat of such grave crimes, bluntly warned about “the possibility of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing” in the Ivory Coast.

The Security Council has reinforced the U.N. peacekeeping force in the country, and numerous governments in Africa and elsewhere are pressing Laurent Gbagbo to step down after the internationally recognized victory of opposition leader Alassane Ouattara in November’s election.

In Sudan, a referendum likely to result in partition of the country later this year proceeded relatively peacefully, following an intense diplomatic push by the United States and other countries. Only six months ago, there were serious questions about whether the referendum would occur on time, and many feared a return to the sweeping violence, even genocide, that has plagued Africa’s largest country since its independence in 1956.

Severe dangers remain in both the Ivory Coast and Sudan — particularly in the long-troubled Darfur region, where violence has surged in recent months. However, there is reason to hope that governments around the world are finally getting the message that investing to prevent mass atrocities is not only sound humanitarian policy but also far more cost effective — avoiding huge costs of handling refugees, reconstruction and other requirements that inevitably follow genocide. Genocidal states also are invariably failed states, which incubate terrorism, pandemic diseases and other scourges.